CCC "Confident" Tshabangu's High Court Application Will Fail
The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) says its candidates for the 03 February 2024 by-elections will continue campaigning despite an urgent High Court application filed by Sengezo Tshabangu seeking to bar the 23 candidates from contesting on the party ticket.
The 23 CCC candidates successfully filed their nomination papers at the Nomination Court on 18 December 2023.
However, a previous High Court order barred fellow party members from contesting under the party name on the basis that they had ceased to be party members ahead of the 09 December 2023 by-elections.
In a statement, CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi said the matter is already before the Supreme Court on an appeal basis and the party’s legal team is confident that Tshabangu’s application will be thrown out. Read the statement:
Our candidates and our supporters are urged to remain focused on the campaign and prepare to vote in the upcoming by-elections while retaining our representatives our lawyers address this issue.
Our legal teams have advised that this matter is already before the Supreme Court on an appeal basis following the initial barring of our candidates on the 9th of December 2023.
It is their considered view that the high court, to which this ill-fated appeal was lodged, being a lower court, must defer this matter to the superior court, which is the Supreme Court which is in the process of determining the matter anyway. So this appeal is not urgent and must and will be thrown away.
It must be noted that Tshabangu was barred from making any further recalls until the matter is finalised in another separate appeal before the Supreme Court.
What this means is that Tshabangu is unable to make any further recalls until the determination of that matter.
But because Tshabangu and his accomplices do not have any authority over the party or its deployees other than the threat of recalls, Tshabangu has no choice but to keep threatening party deployees with recalls to threaten and force them to comply with his criminal instructions, which explains even this attempt to bar CCC from contesting.
It is sad to note that ZANU PF does not respect the will of the people and the outcome of the elections even going by their cooked figures of August 23, 2023.
Zimbabwe must put itself in a positive light by being seen to be promoting rather than stifling democratic competition.
The barring of CCC is a further dent on the regime’s image which already suffered immensely from the disputed outcome of the general elections roundly condemned by all observers.
The attempt to bar our candidates is further vindication that Zimbabwean authorities and ZEC are not interested or capable of allowing a free and fair election to take place.
Barring two or three MPs and a couple of councillors shows the extent they would have gone in August 2023 to ensure that President Nelson Chamisa’s victory was reversed.
Our lawyers are seized with this matter and are confident that it will be thrown away as it should because it’s already before a superior court.
We are also engaged on this matter politically to ensure that we continue to defend the rights of Zimbabweans to contest elections and choose leaders of their choice.
The right to vote and to be voted for was one of the primary reasons for the liberation struggle. We will continue to fight for and to defend this inalienable right.
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